Tag Archives: death

Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges April 2, 1942, died November 13, 2016) was an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music.

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, he began playing piano at the age of four. Russell attended Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At this time he was already performing at Tulsa nightclubs. After moving to Los Angeles, he became a session musician, working as a pianist on the recordings of many notable musical artists from the 1960s. By the late 1960s, Russell diversified, becoming successful as an arranger and wrote and co-wrote songs. As a musician, he worked his way up from gigs as a sideman to well known performers. By 1970 he had graduated to solo recording artist, although he never ended all his previous roles within the music industry.

Russell was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Monday, March 14, 2011

April 19: Levon Helm died four years ago, Rest In Peace

Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm , was an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band.

Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, and creative drumming style highlighted on many of The Band’s recordings, such as “The Weight”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, “Ophelia” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.

On stage I make love to twenty-five thousand people; and then I go home alone.
~Janis Joplin

You know why we’re stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don’t let themselves feel things.
~Janis Joplin

The greatest white female rock singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

September 1: R.L. Burnside passed away in 2005

“He was a happy-go-lucky nihilist…. he took things exactly as they were. No more, no less.”– Matthew Johnson, the founder of Mr. Burnside’s record label, Fat Possum.

R. L. Burnside (November 23, 1926 – September 1, 2005),born Robert Lee Burnside, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s.

In the latter half of the 1990s, Burnside repeatedly recorded with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fan base within the underground garage rock scene.

One commentator noted that Burnside…. were “present-day exponents of an edgier, electrified version of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound.”

In the 1990s, he appeared in the film Deep Blues and began recording for the Oxford, Mississippi, label Fat Possum Records.Founded byLiving Blues magazine editor Peter Redvers-Lee and Matthew Johnson, the label was dedicated to recording aging North Mississippi bluesmen such as Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.

April 05: Kurt Cobain died in 1994 – Nirvana’s 10 best songs

Kurt Cobain died in 1994, (April 5) he is best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Nirvana. Kurt Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene, having its debut album Bleach released on the independent record label Sub Pop in 1989. After signing with major label DGC Records, the band found breakthrough success with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from its second album Nevermind (1991). Following the success of Nevermind, Nirvana was labeled “the flagship band” of Generation X, and Cobain hailed as “the spokesman of a generation”

During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with heroin addiction, illness and depression. He had difficulty coping with his fame and public image, and the professional and lifelong personal pressures surrounding himself and his wife, musician Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, the victim of a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

Since their debut, Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, has sold over 25 million albums in the U.S., and over 50 million worldwide.

We, at Johannasvisions, made a list of Nirvana’s ten best songs a few months ago, I will include it here as a tribute to a great musician.